Paris
by Lavender and Hay
Summary: Another take on the scene in s3e04 when Tony asks Carol about Paris.
1. Chapter 1

**I've never written for Wire in the Blood before so I'm a little bit nervous. I've altered the scene in s3e04 when he asks her about Paris. **

At first, she can only feel a sense of crippling shock. She barely knows what to say.

"Do you ever wish we were still lovers?"

There are so many times it could have happened, she thinks. Were there? Had there been? If that were true, how hadn't it ever happened?

A weekend in Paris. Oysters from room service. Oh God-…. She sat down and spoke before she could let herself question whether the boundary between reality and her imaginings had ever been crossed- of course it hadn't, that was absurd.

"Tony, we were never lovers."

His face hardly altered.

_We should do it again_. If he really was going to die, she thought, and he wanted her to, she would be powerless to resist him. It would be almost wrong of her to, especially as she had spent so many years wanting-…

"Tony-…"

He looked at her properly for the first time.

"We were never lovers?" he repeated, his eyebrows lifting a little.

She shook her head in reply.

"No," she answered.

"Why not?" he asked her.

She paused for a second.

"I don't know," she replied softly, "There was never the right time."

He hummed quietly in agreement.

"Yes," he replied, still leaning back in his chair, "Funny that."

Her hands were shaking.

"Tony," she murmured, "Please don't."

"Please don't what, Carol?" he asked her, "If I'm dying don't I get to say what I think about it? When I can think at all, that is."

"Tony, you're not dying," she murmured softly, wanting so much to make herself believe it too, "You are not going to die."

"We're all going to die," he reminded her flatly, "In the end."

"Not until you're a doddery old man," she replied, "And don't tell me you already feel like one. You have years. We have years."

He did not say anything for a few moments. He sat there in silence, looking calmly back at her.

"Don't get me wrong," he told her at last, "I want to believe you. But I'm not sure that I can last years like this."

She let out a low sigh.

"It will be alright," she told him, "You won't have to, you will be alright. I promise."

"You don't know that," he told her in reply.

She let out a low sigh.

"Just tell me," she told him, "What I can say to you. What to do you want me to say to you?"

"Nothing," he replied.

She was quiet, as close as she could be to completely silent. She didn't know how tears were not welling in her eyes.

"Kiss me, Carol."

**Please review if you have the time, I'd love to know what you think. **


	2. Chapter 2

"Tony. What?"

She must have misheard him. She must have done. But he was the one who was having trouble grasping what was real. And he thought they had gone to Paris together, been-…

"Kiss me."

"Yes," she murmured, "That's what I thought you said."

But she sat still. She didn't move. She couldn't. She didn't know what to do.

"What's the problem?" he asked her, quite reasonably, "Maybe that's a stupid question. You don't want to. You just said, didn't you, we weren't lovers. Why would you want to? I shouldn't have asked."

"No, Tony. It's-…"

She fell silent. She couldn't find the words for it with about being more direct than she wanted to be.

"It's what?" he pressed her.

She would have to be direct.

"You've never asked me to kiss you before. You said yourself, you can't think straight at the moment. I'd just, feel more certain if you'd ever asked me to when you could think straight."

"Do you think anyone is ever thinking straight when they ask them to kiss them?"

Always so bloody academic, especially when all she wanted him to talk about, no, refer to, explicitly, was them.

But he did. He said he thought you were lovers. You, and he. Explicitly.

And he was right. If they were going to talk about thinking clearly, it would be a bit of an overestimation to say that she'd been thinking completely clearly at any stage since they had met. For once, the roles were reversed, but what difference did it really make? They had never kissed before. That was a difference.

"How do I know you really want me?" She meant to say, "To kiss you." The words never found their way out.

But he seemed to think nothing of it.

"Would I ask you if I didn't?" he asked her in return.

"I don't know," she replied truthfully.

There was a moment's pause.

"It's up to you, Carol," he told her a moment later, "I want you to kiss me. If I die I would like to at least know what it was like. If you want to, do, if you don't want to, then don't. Of course."

What was she supposed to do? She wanted to. She had always wanted to, how was she supposed to not, hearing him saying the words now, _I want you. _

Slowly, she stood. She moved to stand before him. He sat looking plaintively up at her. He did not move, he was waiting for her. She fell to her knees before him, kneeling just between his legs.

She cupped his cheek in her palm. Stroked the skin with the pad of her thumb. Of course, she had touched his face before. He was so alive, she thought, now more so than ever before. The proximity to danger, to death, heightened everything about him.

He was watching her steadily, almost tensely, she wanted him to relax.

"Here's to Paris," she told him.

It worked. He exhaled gently as their lips met.

**Please review if you have the time, I'd love to know what you think.**


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